Neighborhood Forest Overlay Unanimously Approved by Dallas City Council

April, 2019 – TXHTC is happy to announce a GREAT addition to the tree and landscape ordinance for the City of Dallas. By using a Neighborhood Forest Overlay (NFO), homeowners will be able to preserve and protect large, older trees in their neighborhood. This is a pro-active measure we can take to protect our trees before the bulldozers are on the way. We’ve been looking for a solution like this for years.

For our members who don’t live in the City of Dallas, an NFO would most certainly be a very good thing where you live, too. We encourage you to pursue an NFO in your community. Spread the word, and let’s move this out to communities far and wide. Every neighborhood should have big trees!

A quick summary of the NFO from our friends at the Urban Forest Advisory Committee:

What is an NFO?

As trees throughout Dallas are being removed in neighborhoods during construction, the NFO is a tool which could enable you along with a group of your neighbors (as few as 10 homes) to help protect the trees in your neighborhood. This is an opportunity for your neighborhood to come together to protect your trees and maintain your community’s urban canopy.

How to create an NFO?

A group of neighbors come together and decide they want to protect their trees. With the help of City Staff, each neighborhood or group of homes can write a set of their own regulations to protect their trees using the new City of Dallas Landscape and Tree Conservation Regulations (Article X) as a foundation. City staff will assist Neighborhoods in initiating and guiding the NFO process, providing petitions to gather neighbors’ signature, and holding public meetings to discuss the various options available including forest canopy goals.